Airspeed

The first of a three-part series that takes you behind the scenes at airshows. In this episode, Airspeed takes you out to show center with the pyro crew at the 2012 TICO Valiant Air Command Warbird Airshow with Mark Sorenson and James Hammons of Tiger Airshows and The Ringmasters.

The American Flight museum's AC-57 Spooky gunship.

Karl Stoltzfus of Dynamic Aviation flew this beautiful DC-3/C-47 to Topeka to show her off to this crowd. His grandson, Gabriel (7) joined him to talk about the aircraft and its renovation.

Greg Smith and his Beech 18.

Bill Whiteman's T-28 Trojen - a RapidCast from the Gathering of Warbirds and Legends in Topeka.

Talking abut a liaison aircraft among the heavy metal on the ramp at Topeka.

Commemorative paratrooper MSgt (Ret) Robert Yarberry.

The briefing from the practice day of the Gathering of Warbirds and Legends.

The Airspeed audience first met ENS Evan Levesque (pronounced “leh-VECK”) as a MDN 1/C at the US Naval Academy in 2010. We then checked in with him during his primary flight training in the T-6B in February of 2012. Since then, ENS Levesque has gone on to tailhook training, flying the T-45 Goshawk. This episode features more than an hour of conversation with ENS Levesque about what it's like to fly jets and to prepare to land an aircraft on a floating runway.

Meet B-52 and B-2 driver USAF Lt Col (Ret) Chris "Cliff" DeVaughn! We talked about the aircraft, its flight characteristics, and its mission. And, more importantly, we talked about what it's like to fly long-duration missions in one of the most important strategic weapons systems in the US inventory. All the way from the selection process through training and into combat. This is every bit as much about the men as the machines.